Dressing race: clothes, immigration & youth identities in Britain 1965-1972

Humphries, Sam (2013). Dressing race: clothes, immigration & youth identities in Britain 1965-1972. University of Birmingham. M.Phil.

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Abstract

This thesis will explore the role race plays in conceptions and performances of British identity by using clothes as a source. It will use the relationship between the body and clothes to argue that cultural understandings of race are part of the basis for meaningful communication in dress. It offers a new understanding of identity formation in Britain and explains the complex relationship between working-class youth-subcultures and Post-War Immigration.

The thesis consists of three case studies of the clothes worn by different groups in British society between the period 1965 and 1972: firstly a study of Afro-Caribbean migrants to the UK, secondly the South Asian Diaspora in the UK, and finally the Skinhead youth-subculture. It will argue that race is discursively constructed in Britain by rendering physical differences of the body culturally intelligible through clothes. The white body is the site where British identities are formed, giving the white body the power to define and categorise other bodies in Britain during this period. The cultural medium of dress plays an important part in defining and making race real, structuring everyday life and identities in British society.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Masters by Research > M.Phil.)

Award Type:

Masters by Research > M.Phil.

Supervisor(s):